Mrs. ProST. Our next witness is Mr. Fogg, of the Idaho Aviation

Trades Association, Inc.

You may proceed, Mr. Fogg.

STATEMENT OF BOB H. FOGG, IDAHO AVIATION TRADES
ASSOCIATION, INC., McCALL, IDAHO

Mr. FOGG. Madam Chairman, Congressman Olsen, ladies and gentlemen, I am Bob H. Fogg, member of the village board of trustees of McCall, manager of the McCall Municipal Airport, president of the Johnson Flying Service of Idaho, Inc., president of, and representing, the Idaho Aviation Trades Association. This association represents the majority of the commercial aviation operators.

The Idaho Aviation Trades Association recognizes wilderness as one of the legitimate uses of our land and does not oppose the establishment of areas containing true wilderness values. We further believe that all lands should be studied and evaluated before they are included in a wilderness area. We oppose the enactment of S. 174 for these specific reasons:

(1) We feel that the U.S. Forest Service has done a good job in the past managing our present primitive area.

These areas have not been shrinking in size in these past years.

Any area, within our primitive area, of true wilderness value will set and qualify themselves as a wilderness area.

It is the quality of a scenic area that tends to bring tourists to the State, rather than the size of the area.

(2) The passage of S. 174, we feel, will have adverse effect on the future economy of Idaho. As Idaho grows in population and in business, it will be necessary for Idaho to be able to manage every acre of her land.

(3) Local government, we feel, needs the support of the natural products of our publicly owned lands, such as lumbering, grazing, mining, water, and recreation. The local economy benefits from contributions of products from the land, and also the 25 percent school and road contributions from the income of these lands. The State of Idaho is nearly 70 percent federally owned, and with such a limited. tax base all lands capable of production, both private and public, must be producing.

(4) We object specifically to section 4 of this act which provides for and seems to make mandatory the acquisition of privately owned lands within the wilderness area.

(5) We fear that the system set up by S. 174 will eventually lead to the establishment of another governmental agency which will have to be set up to manage our wilderness areas, since these wilderness areas include lands from the three unrelated agencies of the national forests, national parks, and fish and wildlife service, each with a different set of management objectives and regulations.

(6) We sincerely believe that all additions to or deletions from any wilderness system should be made by affirmative act of Congress. Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Thank you, Mr. Fogg. [Applause.]

Our next witness is Mr. Irvin Hope of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local Union No. 2816, Emmett, Idaho. You may proceed, Mr. Hope.

STATEMENT OF IRVIN HOPE, UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA, EMMETT, IDAHO

Mr. HOPE. Madam Chairman, and members of the congressional committee, I am Irvin Hope of Emmett, Idaho. I represent local No. 2816 of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union, which consists of approximately 600 members. I requested the time to submit a resolution from that local.

The resolution reads as follows:

Whereas Senate bill 174 to establish a national wilderness preservation system for good of the whole people, and for other purposes, has been presented to the local No. 2116 of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers affiliated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; and

Whereas the economy of our local is dependent upon timber; and

Whereas such wilderness area will greatly limit the recreational use of our membership as well as general tourists in favor of a limited few with money and time; and

Whereas our membership and majority of people of Idaho are concerned with opportunity and security attained through timbering and other natural resources of Idaho; and

Whereas such wilderness area would, in our opinion, interfere with the multiple-use concept of our natural resources; and

Whereas Idaho forest lands will support more than one use, under proper management, and our primitive areas are presently managed for the best interests of the public, commerce, and industry; and

Whereas some terrain of Idaho in itself through natural restrictiveness is limited to single use concepts of wilderness area recreation; and

Whereas the existing laws, regulations, and natural restrictive terrain preserve recreational aspects of forest use, S. 174 stands as an unneeded experimental piece of legislation which defeats its own avowed purpose; and

Whereas disease, insects, and uncontrollable fires could interfere with proper timber management in said areas: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That Local 2816 of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers affiliated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Emmett, Idaho, hereby declares that it is opposed to S. 174 for the reasons mentioned above; be it further

Resolved, That copies of this resolution be sent to our representatives in Washington, D.C.

Thank you.

Madam Chairman, I would request a question for clarification of the bill. I will make a statement, and if I am in error, would you correct me, please?

It says that under this bill

the President may, as a part of his recommendations, alter the boundaries existing on the date of this Act for any primitive area to be continued in the wilderness system, recommending the exclusion and return to national forest land status of any portion not predominantly of wilderness value, or recommending the addition of any contiguous area of national forest lands predominantly of wilderness value; Provided further, That following such exclusions and additions any primitive area recommended to be continued in the wilderness system shall not exceed the area classified as primitive on the date of this Act.

I have heard the proponents of the bill have said it only involves the area already marked off as primitive area. Under this bill there is provision that part of this primitive area can be excluded from the Wilderness Act, and it does not say regardless of whether there is access to that portion of the primitive area by roads or not.

If I am not correct, please correct me.

Then, I take it that the area in the shape of that map can be appreciably changed within the next 10 years, if, under the recommenda

tions of the people involved, Congress can take 100,000 acres of the Bitterroot area and exclude it from the wilderness area; am I correct? Mrs. Prost. It is my understanding there may be approximately 711,000 acres of the primitive area that will be excluded before it is put into wilderness, because during the primitive survey the area in this section on the northeast side of the Selway-Bitterroot, as well as the section on the southeast side, has been determined not necessarily to be conducive to primitive area; and, therefore, a quite sizable deletion is contemplated to be made before the wilderness bill is enacted. Let me say further, the Congress, this subcommittee, and even the full committee, could very likely change the boundaries of this within the State of Idaho if they so desired, through amendments.

Mr. HOPE. Figuratively speaking, then, 100,000 acres of this area here could be traded for 100,000 acres of another area and, according to the bill, these areas do not have to be, the boundaries do not have to joint. A hundred thousand acres can be deleted from this area and 100 miles away another 100,000 acres can be added to the primitive area, if it is recommended as a wilderness area; am I correct?

Mrs. Prost. Let me say this, Mr. Hope: Your time is much more than up at the present time. However, our consultant, Mr. Pearl, will very briefly follow the bill here with a remark or two in response. Mr. HOPE. Thank you.

Mr. PEARL. In substance, of course, what you had to say was correct. However, S. 174, as passed by the Senate, specifically says that minor modifications or adjustments of boundaries of any portion of the wilderness system established in accordance with this act shall be made in the procedure that you outlined. Then the proposed modification or adjustment shall be recommended with map and description thereof to the President. The President shall advise the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives of his recommendations with respect to such modification or adjustment and such recommendations would become effective then only after they had been submitted to Congress and if neither House of Congress has rejected the recommendations.

So that you have a double-barreled proposition in the bill as passed by the Senate. No. 1 is that it must be a minor adjustment; No. 2 is that even if it is minor it has to be submitted to Congress and can be rejected by resolution of either House.

Mr. HOPE. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. ProST. These points will be cleared up when the technicians testify in Washington.

Mr. HOPE. Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Our next witness is Mr. Alex O. Coleman, of Jerome, Idaho, and then Mr. Frank Cullen, of Coeur d'Alene.

STATEMENT OF ALEX 0. COLEMAN, JEROME, IDAHO, DIRECTOR, IDAHO STATE RECLAMATION ASSOCIATION

Mr. COLEMAN. Madam Chairman, Congressman Olsen, ladies and gentlemen, I am appearing before this committee as a representative of the Idaho State Reclamation Association in opposition to legislation such as this which is proposed in S. 174.

The Idaho State Reclamation Association was organized in 1937 and has an active membership of more than 200 irrigation districts and

canal companies which all together operate the irrigation works on approximately 2,250,000 acres of irrigated land in Idaho which is more than 90 percent of the total.

For years the association has been the spokesman of the irrigators of the Great Snake River Basin of southern Idaho. The Idaho State Reclamation Association is a true grassroots association of farmers and irrigators. The association selects its officers at annual meetings, and all officers are men directly connected with irrigation either as individual farmers or as officers of irrigation districts and canal companies.

The association is also affiliated with the National Reclamation Association which is also opposed to this proposed legislation. I am a director of the Idaho State Reclamation Association and the Idaho director for the National Reclamation Association.

We feel that S. 174 is unjust, discriminatory, and that it caters to pressure groups, thus interfering with the orderly programs of watershed management and development. We are not opposed to setting aside some land for wilderness areas. We all know that wilderness is an integral part of our American heritage. All we have to do is look back a few years in our national history to see how our Nation was born in the wilderness.

Then, from this wilderness, we took the lands and materials to build our country. The freedom of wild lands, their great open spaces, and their grandeur are interwoven into our history. In our art and literature can be seen the shape of our national character. We feel that some of this wilderness which witnessed the birth of a nation as great as ours, and supplied the necessities for its growth should have a place in its recreational areas. We are 100 percent for this, but we think it should be done in a way that it will not jeopardize our American heritage and yet be consistent with other like Federal entities, such as the national park system and the U.S. Forest Service.

To Idaho this means a great deal. We are a public land State. Sixty-four percent of our total area of Idaho is now federally owned. Approximately 20 million acres are forest land upon which graze cattle and sheep. Idaho's second largest industry is livestock production. Thirty-six percent of the public domain is used for grazing. According to the bill, S. 174, public lands proposed for classification as wilderness, which have been open to livestock and grazing under the provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act, will remain open to such use if the Secretary of the Interior or Agriculture administering the lands, authorize its continuation, but then only under restrictions over and above those contained in the Taylor Grazing Act and Forest Service regulations. In other words, this means that they will have you off this land as soon as possible, for this bill supersedes everything previously in effect.

Of greatest significance is the impact of this legislation on future reclamation development. Our rapidly increasing population means increasing pressure on the land. Every acre susceptible of irrigation must eventually contribute to the food supply for this increasing population. Agriculture is basic to Idaho's economy. It is now and it will be in the future. There are over a million acres in southern Idaho alone that are susceptible to irrigation not now being irrigated. The only way that water can be made available for this land is by the con